


Sleep Don't Visit

by mangochi



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Could count as pre-slash, Drinking, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 04:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1455634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim finds Bones completely and utterly smashed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Don't Visit

Jim smells the whiskey before he sees it, its heavy scent perforating the too-warm air of Bones’ quarters. The doctor’s always liked the climate control on the warm side, like it evokes some distant memory of Georgian summers, and Jim’s not about to stop him when Spock insists on keeping his at scorching temperatures. Makes for interesting mornings in their shared bathroom when their doors happen to open at the same time, anyway.

He smells the whiskey and sees Bones’ legs sprawled out into the light, and it doesn’t take a genius to connect the drinking with the current stardate, so Jim is more than qualified to draw a conclusion at this point.

“Shut the damn door,” grates the slurred voice, and Jim catches glimpse of a squinting face and a hand thrown up against the light streaming in from the corridor.

“Bones,” he says, letting all of his disappointment and worry out in one word, and the hand falls down.

“Go away, Jim.”

Jim considers it briefly, but this is  _Bones_ , so it really isn’t a choice at all. He steps through the open doorway instead and orders the lights to fifteen percent capacity as the door closes behind him.

The dim lighting most likely makes Bones look better than he really is, which probably isn’t much of a consolation to either of them. He’s slumped up against the foot of his bed, stripped down to his undershirt with one boot off like he made an attempt to undress before giving up completely. The bottle clutched loosely in his right hand is more than half empty, a little puddle of spilled alcohol slowly staining the fabric of Bones’ right pant leg, and the look in his eyes makes Jim want to turn his ship around and blast Georgia off the world map.

“You can’t let her get to you like this,” Jim says, thinking that he ought to try and play the responsible adult here. He squats down in front of Bones between his knees and reaches for the bottle.

Bones makes a halfhearted effort to twitch it away from him, but his movements are clumsy and Jim snags the bottle easily. He raises it in false contemplation before shrugging and downing the rest of the whiskey in one gulp. Bones makes a noise of protest at that, his head falling back against the mattress to glare sullenly at Jim.

It burns the entire way down, and Jim blinks automatic tears from his eyes. “Good stuff,” he gasps, when his throat muscles finally unclench enough for him to speak. “Pity you’re wasting it on your anniversary.”

“Screw you, kid.”

“That’s not very friendly of you.”

“I’m  _not_ fr-frien…….nice. Not nice.” Bones scowls at his own failing facilities. His usually neatly combed hair is mussed and sticking up madly on one side, the skin beneath his eyes bruised and hollow. “I’m not nice,” he says again.

“Not like this, you’re not. C’mon, you’re the doctor, remember? What would Chapel say if she was here, huh?” Jim sets the empty bottle out of reach and shifts so that he’s kneeling instead, taking the weight off the balls of his feet. “She’d rip you a new one, that’s what. And I’d help.” He grins, fast and gleaming, and hopes that it’d be enough to jolt Bones out of his funk.

It’s not.

“It’s not Jocelyn.” The words are morose and unexpected, Bones staring down at his lap as he mumbles them. Jim blinks, surprised, and cocks his head curiously.

“What?”

Bones seems to remember that he’s not supposed to be talking to Jim and glowers, swinging his arm and smacking Jim in the chest feebly. “None o’ your business.”

“You’re my business.”

“The hell……the hell I am.”

“You’re my  _friend_ ,” Jim tells him exasperatedly. “God, Bones, you gonna make me say it after all this time? If it’s not your ex, then what is it?”

Bones grumbles incoherently, tucking his chin down into his chest so that his bangs flop over his eyes, and Jim tuts.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” He reaches out, unable to help himself from ruffling the messy mop of hair in front of him, and Bones swats him away.

“Jo’s got a boyfriend,” he says quickly, like he’s ripping off a bandage, and Jim’s so surprised that he can only stare for a few seconds.

“Jo?” He hasn’t heard Bones talk about his daughter in ages, long enough that he’s started to wonder if everything’s going extremely well or the complete opposite.

“A kid from her class, apparently, but he’s probably an asshole and I’m not there to chase him off.” Bones looks suddenly worse, like just thinking about it is sending him down the spiral again. “What the hell do I even do?”

“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing,” Jim says slowly, trying not to laugh. Laughing would be bad, he suspects, judging by the crazed way Bones is now glaring at him.

“She’s  _ten,_ Jim _._ ”

“We were all ten once,” Jim tells him sagely.

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Me neither.”

Bones gestures wildly. “She’s already bringing boys home, which means she’ll be married and having kids before I even know it, and God, Jim, I’ve missed half her life already. What am I supposed to do when-”

“Hey.” Jim smacks his hands on either side of Bones’ face, holding his head still between his palms. “Calm down,” he says, forcing Bones to look at him. “You’re a mess.”

Bones splutters indignantly. “You-”

“Yeah, Joanna’s ten,” Jim says over him. “She’s ten, and she’s going to be eleven, and then she’s going to be twelve. And one day, she’s going to be twenty-six. But you know what?”

“Not really helping, kid-”

“You know what?” Jim repeats, squishing Bones’ cheeks together so that he can’t talk. He looks ridiculous like this, all pathetic and annoyed and-

Jim’s heart twists agonizingly in his chest before flopping over in completely surrender. He drops his hands to his lap and shrugs. “She’s still going to have you. She’s going to have an awesome dad who loves her even when he’s fifty lightyears away. Which is more than a lot of kids can say, let me tell you that.”

Bones’ eyes soften, clearing with a new note of sobriety. “Always gotta be about you, isn’t it?” he asks, but his voice is less hysterical now. More grounded.

“Yeah, well.” Jim grins and rises to his knees, shuffling around to lean against the bed beside Bones and throwing a casual arm across his shoulders. Bones lets him do it, and Jim doesn’t say a word. It’s how they’ve always been, from the first time Bones threw up on his shoes without apologizing and Jim silently dunks his head in the sink of the tiny shuttle bathroom.

“You’re so fussy when you’re drunk,” Jim murmurs, and Bones offers a solitary grunt in response. He tips his head back against Jim’s shoulder, and Jim impulsively raises his hand to brush the hair back from Bones’ forehead, sliding his palm across his eyes. He feels the flutter of eyelashes against his skin and tries to still his pounding heart.

“Thanks,” Bones says, quiet and uncertain.

Jim imagines them two years from now, five years, Joanna on her way through high school with her father’s smile and leading a string of broken hearts. Bones moping in his quarters and Jim picking up the pieces.

“No problem,” he answers, and if it’s not the whole truth, it’s true enough.


End file.
